Present transporters, while providing successful assistance in the loading, transporting and unloading of cane billets, also contain shortcomings which decrease their flexibility and increase costs.
For example, articulated vehicles are presently used in one crop transporter design. While such articulated vehicles need not use steerable front axles which, when mechanically driven, can be complex and costly, articulated vehicles are inherently less stable than vehicles using a rigid frame. This instability is underlined when large tires are used as is the case with cane transporters because of the often wet and adverse field conditions under which cane harvesting frequently takes place.
A further transporter uses an elevator and a cross conveyor, the elevator raising the cane billets from the bin in which the billets are transported and the cross conveyor receiving the billets from the elevator and conveying them normal to the longitudinal axis of the transporter to a loading bin located at the side of the transporter. While these transporters serve to suitably unload the billets when the loading bin is located at the appropriate height, it frequently is the case that the top of the loading bin is higher than the discharge exit of the cross conveyor. The only way to raise the cross conveyor for suitable discharge is to raise the entire vehicle and this is time consuming and unacceptable.
Yet a further problem with present transporters relates to the shape of the bin in which the cane billets are transported. Since the support structure for the bin is located at the forward portion of the bin and since the width restrictions for trucks and other vehicles used on public roads prohibit excess width, the forward portion of the bin is tapered as it leads to the elevator. The tapered portion is vulnerable to being clogged or jammed because it is especially difficult to compress cane and also because cane harvesting, particularly green cane harvesting, inherently includes a large amount of trash which may contribute to the build up in the tapered area.